Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter.

We are just days away from the twentieth anniversary of an Editor and Publisher story titled “Is Crackdown on Anonymous Sources Going Too Far?” We are approaching the tenth anniversary of the New York Times’ vow to start “cracking down” on anonymous sources. And we are only a few months removed from President Trump’s threat that he would use one of his favorite tactics, suing journalists, to crack down on anonymous sources. 

In other words, our angst over anonymous sources will always be with us. Editors and readers complain about them, but the relentless pressure for scoops, along with the unwillingness of news organizations to band together or push back, leaves these “crackdowns” toothless.

So let’s start with a more modest suggestion: Can we ban the anonymous government spokesperson?

At least one news site is doing that.

On Sunday, the Denver Post’s Shelly Bradbury published a deeply reported story about how deportations of immigrants are derailing criminal prosecutions. Noncitizen defendants charged with crimes like sexual assault, attempted murder, and human trafficking are being sent to other countries before they can face justice in Colorado courtrooms.

ICE had something to say about this, but the agency provided its response to local TV and radio stations, not the Post. As Bradbury’s story notes, ICE flack Steve Kotecki “previously has requested blanket anonymity for his statements as a spokesman for the federal agency, which the Post declined to grant. He also has said he would no longer provide information to the Post unless the newspaper complied with his request for anonymity.”

So, in just one paragraph, the Post let ICE know that it won’t acquiesce to a spokesman on the public payroll, and it also let readers know that the site has standards. Managing editor Matt Sebastian told me that Kotecki has been sending out quotes labeled as a “statement attributable to an ICE spokesperson.” Sebastian added that “when we’ve pointed out that we didn’t agree to such conditions, he responds that it is ICE policy that their spokespeople not be named. But that’s not our policy. Anonymity in journalism is something that must be agreed upon by both parties, not unilaterally invoked.”

Oddly, ICE isn’t even entirely consistent with its policy. At one point in the story, Kotecki is quoted with an official statement. That “was something of a surprise,” Sebastian said.

The Post’s transparency stands in contrast to what we saw in an otherwise compelling New York Times story this week: FEMA failed to answer thousands of calls from flood-stricken Texas residents, shortly after the government fired hundreds of call-center contractors. The scoop also included a response from “a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security who declined to be identified.”

The Times never explains why her identity must be cloaked, especially since she is just serving as a conveyor belt for this anodyne statement from higher-ups: “When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase. Despite this expected influx, FEMA’s disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance.” 

Imagine if, instead, the Times had published this: “A DHS spokeswoman declined to speak on the record. Barring unusual circumstances, we do not provide anonymity to government spokespeople, so we are unable to provide the agency’s response. We will update this story with a DHS comment should the agency change its policy.”

Reporters understandably make allowances if a spokesperson leaks information that might endanger his or her job or safety. But that is rarely the case. These spokespeople are paid by citizens, and readers have a right to know who’s saying what. “Government agencies,” said Sebastian, “should be as transparent as possible—and that includes putting real people behind their public statements.”

Sometimes, you want one reporter to handle a big breaking story. And sometimes you want a large team to handle it. With the coverage of the Texas floods, we’ve seen the best of both.

First up: Aaron Parsley’s extraordinary first-person account of his family’s ordeal, published last week in Texas Monthly. An excerpt: 

“When the sliding-glass door opened and water poured in, Lance ran to it, shoved it closed, and held it shut. The pendant lamps began to swing wildly over the kitchen counter. The house was shifting. It lurched sharply, and we all struggled to stay on our feet. It felt like walking down the aisle of a plane during strong turbulence. ‘We’re moving. We’re moving,’ Patrick said. The realization was terrifying. The rushing, still-rising water had lifted the house off its pillars. It was afloat.”

And, after you’ve finished Parsley’s story and you’ve caught your breath, take a few more minutes to read this note from the magazine’s editor in chief, Ross McCammon. It turns out that Parsley, who clung from tree to tree to survive, filed most of this 4,200-word piece in less than a day. Texas Monthly edited, fact-checked, and published it on July 10, less than a week after the disaster. As McCammon stated, “Aaron responded to notes in the middle of the night so I’d have a revised draft when I woke up. I’ve never seen anything like it from a writer, especially not a grieving, banged-up writer who was also a critical part of the emotional support system his loved ones needed—and that he needed.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Post assigned a team of around twenty people to assemble a detailed, dramatic account of the catastrophe at Camp Mystic, where twenty-seven girls and counselors died amid the rising floodwaters. The story had its share of scoops—including the news that the camp had received a “severe flood warning” more than an hour before the staff started evacuating the girls. But the story also re-created the split-second decisions that would determine who would survive and who would perish. 

I was especially struck by the account of Ainslie Bashara, a nineteen-year-old counselor for girls half her age. Around 2am on July 4, Bashara “heard 8-year-olds in a nearby cabin start shrieking, and then saw older girls running up the road with blankets and pillows to the recreation hall on higher ground. ‘Are we staying or leaving?’ she yelled out the window. ‘Stay in your cabin!’ she recalled a staff member shouting back.” 

Fortunately, Bashara went with her instincts and, when the tide breached her cabin, evacuated her campers through waist-deep water. They would survive, but as they fled, Bashara “could hear girls in another cabin begging for help over the roaring river.”

Two more notable stories this week:

• We’ve known for years that the Saydnaya prison in Syria served as a killing ground for enemies, perceived and real, of the Bashar al-Assad regime. But this riveting Wall Street Journal story, based on interviews with twenty-one former detainees (many of them on video and on the record), casts the barbaric cruelty in an even harsher light. Men could be imprisoned simply for being Facebook friends with a government critic. Life in the prison was brutal: Prisoners “were forced to drink their own urine, sexually assaulted, and constantly beaten by guards wielding metal rods and green plastic pipes. When they showered, one man recalled, the blood from the beatings would mix with the soap and water swirling on the floor.” And for most of the detainees, Saydnaya would become their burial site—as many as two hundred murders a day, men dragged through the prison hallways, gagging through their noose-constricted necks. 
  
• How do you get people to read a story about an unexciting company? Bloomberg’s Patrick Clark embraces Hampton’s “good-enough formula” to show how it has become the world’s largest hotel brand. Some of the company’s success is due to its make-your-own waffles in the breakfast bar, but Clark also digs up subtler nuggets, like white bedspreads (so guests can tell the linens are clean) and doorless closets (so guests won’t leave their clothing behind).

Hat tip to Stuart Karle for the WSJ piece. And if you have a suggestion for this column, please send it to laurelsanddarts@cjr.org. We can’t acknowledge all submissions, but we will mention you if we use your idea. For more on Laurels and Darts, please click here.

To receive this and other CJR newsletters in your inbox, please click here.

Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.